News & Views

Contagious X / Preview

Over the last few weeks, we've been hard at work getting together an amazing bumper issue of Contagious to celebrate our tenth anniversary. Here's a sneak peek at what readers can look forward to when the magazine comes out in the first week of December.

Contagious has always been valued for its case studies, but in this special edition we decided to mix things up and focus instead on what qualities brands need to succeed. To that end, we selected ten brand strengths to make up the meat of the magazine.

We landed on these specific traits based on an analysis of all the brands, creative work, trends and ideas we’ve covered over the past few years. So, when the editorial team weighed it all up, what were the topics, themes and ideas that we’ve seen brands using to their advantage? We decided on Disruption, Purpose, Publishing, Data, Design, Experimentation, Services, Empowerment, Collaboration and Culture.

Each strength is divided into three parts: Landscape, Brand Spotlight and Opinion. The Landscape section discusses how the strength has developed over the past decade. The Spotlight then explores the brand that, to our mind, best exemplifies that strength.

We’ve used this opportunity to showcase and dig into standout companies. Some we’ve featured previously but wanted to revisit, such as LEGO, Chipotle, Safaricom and Red Bull. Others we delved into for the first time, like Tesla, Etsy, Uber and Apple.

Of course, the best brands are multi-talented, but to keep things focused we decided to focus on the one aspect of their winning approach. Finally, each section gives the last word to an external expert. We’ve tapped into our smartest contacts, folks who are pushing the industry to evolve in new and previously unimaginable ways, and asked them to share their knowledge with you. Sir Martin Sorrell, CEO of WPP Group, discusses experimentation. Blake Mycoskie, founder of TOMS, gives his take on collaboration. Acclaimed journalist, entrepreneur and publisher Tyler Brûlé shares his thoughts on content and publishing. Unilever CEO Paul Polman tells us why purpose is so vital to the FMCG business. And Jonathan Mildenhall, chief marketing officer at Airbnb, considers disruption.